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The Yellow Christ, Paul
Gauguin, 1889, is no longer the “art of the present” but it’s one of my
favorites at the Albright-Knox.
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The Albright-Knox Art Gallery has announced
that it plans an addition to its venerable space on Elmwood Avenue in the city
of Buffalo. While it’s true that the current 19,000 square feet of floor space
is crammed, one wonders—of course—who is going to pay for the addition.
The museum’s collection contains about 6,740 works, of which
it can only exhibit about 200 at a time, according to Thomas R. Hyde, president
of the museum’s board. “Campus development is no longer an option; it is a
necessity,” he added. “We are, in many ways, a middleweight museum with a
heavyweight collection.” And then he mentioned the cracks in the marble floors
of the gallery’s original building.
(Veterans of capital campaigns will recognize that last
gambit: throw in some deferred maintenance and people are supposed to stop
kvetching about major changes.)
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Side of Beef, Chaim Soutine, c. 1925,
is another of my favorite Albright-Knox pieces.
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Meanwhile, gallery director Janne Siren insists that plans
are still in the ‘conversation’ phase. Having said that, the board has been
rattling the can for expansion since publication of their
2001 strategic plan. “Siren took
over the directorship of the Buffalo gallery shortly after city fathers in
Helsinki, Finland rejected a plan he had spearheaded to build a large
Guggenheim museum there using public funding,” reported WGRZ
radio.
In 2007 the Albright-Knox Art Gallery deaccessioned a Roman
bronze sculpture that subsequently netted $28.6 million at Sotheby's. It was
part of a larger deaccessioning of works that fell outside the ‘core mission’
of the gallery, which then-director Louis Grachos defined as “acquiring and
exhibiting art of the present.” Alert Buffalonians immediately wondered what
that meant for their own favorite works.
The deaccession vote was approved only on the contingency
that the funds raised would be used to buy additional artwork. That meant that
the money from the sale would be added to the paltry $22 million acquisitions
endowment. (The overall endowment of the museum was then about $58 million.)
Being from Buffalo, I first visited the Albright-Knox while
in diapers. Deaccessioning the Roman sculpture and clearing that exhibition
space for other work was the right thing to do. But I share the Buffalo cynical
mind, and I have my doubts about the viability of this project.
Buffalo is now half the size it was the year I was born, and there’s no sign that the population drain will abate any time soon. Clearly the board is counting on tourists to make up their numbers, and with the elegant expansion of the Burchfield-Penney Art Center
across the street, an argument can be made that an arts corridor is possible on
Elmwood Avenue.
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La Maison de la Crau (The Old Mill), Vincent van Gogh, 1888, is another Albright-Knox piece that can no
longer be termed ‘of the present.’
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But that doesn’t address the question of how it will be paid
for, or where the expansion will go. The Albright-Knox is landlocked, with Delaware
Park at its front and Elmwood Avenue by its back door. Any kind of significant
expansion would infringe on its parking lot, its neighbors, or the park.
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1957-D No. 1, Clyfford
Still, 1957. The Albright-Knox has a large collection of Still’s paintings.
Last time I was there, I noticed how many 20th century paintings needed conservation. It’s
not as sexy as expansion but still necessary.
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I await future developments with great interest.
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